


bluebird

by cardangreenbriar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Divergent, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, HARRY DOESNT LOOK LIKE DANIEL RADCLIFFE LOL, M/M, Pining, Short Chapters, Slow Burn, This is going to be long, if you recognize this story ily, love letter to desi!harry, past cedric/harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:42:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26741560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardangreenbriar/pseuds/cardangreenbriar
Summary: There's a decent amount of reasons Harry shouldn't pry, shouldn't stalk Malfoy any longer, shouldn't believe there is a Death Eater plot brewing at Hogwarts. He should really just forget about it.He can't.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> there's a bluebird in my heart that  
> wants to get out  
> but I'm too tough for him,  
> I say, stay in there, I'm not going  
> to let anybody see  
> you.  
> -charles bukowski

Harry is trying not to skid as he runs on the tile, though his trainers are slippery. He’s got to do something. Katie Bell almost died because of Malfoy.

Malfoy is dashing through the hall of toilets, just rounding the corner as Harry comes upon him. He throws another _stupefy_ over his shoulder, and Harry evades it by a hair. The tiled corner of the wall explodes just behind him.

Malfoy must realize he is cornered because he turns on his heels and faces Harry down, his wand pointed from high in the air. Harry can vividly imagine the jagged scratch of the bizarre word in his Potions book: _sectumsempra_.

“ _Crucio_ ,” Malfoy shouts, nearly completes the flourish, but then he crumbles to the floor.

Harry hears the echo of his own voice to some delay, watching the pattern of his wand’s making as it blooms over Malfoy’s chest. Malfoy puts his pale fingers to the wounds. When he catches sight of the blood covering his fingers, he begins to tremble. Then his legs fail him and he lands hard on the floor.

_For enemies_.

Harry promptly feels worse than he has in a long time. He stumbles forward and drops to his knees beside Malfoy, not wanting to look at the damage but unable to look away.

Moaning Myrtle is hovering above them in lazy circles, screaming like a banshee.

“Someone will hear her,” Harry tells Malfoy. “Someone will help.”

Malfoy has got a fear in his eyes, one that Harry imagines he is reciprocating like a mirror. Malfoy’s eyes begin to drop shut, his breath reduced to stuttered gasps, the already pallid complexion of his face going blue.

Harry feels like crying. He may be already. He pulls Malfoy up onto his lap, pressing their bodies together to staunch the bleeding, sopping up the blood and tears on Malfoy’s cheeks with the pulled end of his sleeve. Harry is so, so done for. He will never get to finish his education at Hogwarts. They’ll probably put him in Azkaban, and Voldemort will have no trouble finding him there. Dumbledore won’t help him now.

Harry is thrown backward. His mind is working on a serious delay; it takes him a while to realize the black cloud hovering over Malfoy is Professor Snape. Snape’s wand is weaving out a silver web of magic by a hushed incantation. The blood seeps curiously over Malfoy’s body, reversing time, re-entering his wounds like they never bled. Last, the skins stitches together on its own, the only evidence they’d been there in the clean cuts of his shirt. Malfoy’s breathing slows, steadies, though Harry’s does not.

“You,” Snape spits, the loathing in his dark eyes more vivid than ever, “Wait here.” He turns to leave the bathroom with Draco leaning heavily on his arm.

Harry couldn’t possibly stand. So he waits, watching water pour from the severed pipe at the sink, letting the flood soak his jeans.

“Murderer!” screams Myrtle, “How could you? Murderer!”

“I didn’t mean to,” Harry says.

She does not seem to hear him.


	2. Chapter 2

Pansy is walking behind Harry in the corridor, stepping on the heels of his trainers again and again. He can’t say anything to her. Somehow he evaded expulsion even though he nearly killed a classmate, and isn’t in the interest of pushing it.

“Potter found Draco while he was defenseless,” Pansy cries, her tone venomous. There is a small crowd of Slytherins behind her. “Then him and his gaggle of Weasleys cornered Draco and beat him, _cursed_ him.” Her voice is shrill, made worse with her hatred. She stomps again on the ankle of his trainers. He clenches his teeth, grinding the molars.

“Weasley did? He beat Draco?” one of the youngest girls asks. Harry recognizes her from Quidditch practice. She consistently sits closest to Ron’s position in the field and pretends to consider her notes.

“All of them, the freaks. Jealous, probably, their father being the muggle-lover that he is, their mother such a troll. Draco belongs to one of the greatest wizarding families—“

“Careful,” Hermione bites. “Kiss his pompous arse too much and you’ll chap it.” She pulls Harry by the arm through a mess of students to put distance between them.

“Thanks,” Harry says.

“Of course,” Hermione says, and though she clears her throat like she is about to speak, she waits until they get up two flights of stairs to pursue it. “Are you alright, Harry? I know how everything has been, since Sirius—“

“ _Hermione_ ,” is all Harry says, all that he has to say.

“Right. I know. But about Draco, if anyone deserved it, it’s him, after all the tormenting he’s done to us over the years. And that _stupid_ book. Do you swear you got rid of it?”

Harry notices that she has blocked him from ascending the stairs any further. “It’s gone,” he tells her, which is not a complete lie. In case he should need it again, it’s safe in the Room of Requirement. This particular version was massive, filled with old, lost junk and any student who happened upon it would think no more of it than an ordinary textbook.

“Good,” she says, exhaling. “And Harry? You can talk to me. About anything.”

“I know,” Harry says, finding that she so much mirrors Mrs. Weasley that it’s frightening. He can’t imagine how it makes Ron feel. “Thanks.”

“I know that you won’t anyway,” Hermione smiles, a tinge of weariness reaching her eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

The other students gawk up at Harry— which is not unusual— as he walks through the Great Hall to his usual place on the Gryffindor bench. It has occurred to him that, for example, Seamus or Neville have no idea how it feels to be stared at often and so unashamedly. It’s happened since he was eleven, since the very moment in Knockturn Alley when he realized Hagrid was telling the truth about his name. _Harry_ _Potter_ , he thinks, in the voice of so many others and to great distaste.

The particular thing about this gawking is that it is noticeably worse. It has been since Malfoy. Since the incident in the bathroom. If Pansy didn’t tell everyone, then Moaning Myrtle covered her failure to do so. It was no secret that he and Malfoy shared animosity, but Harry attempted murder, albeit accidentally. Even the Gryffindors who secretly congratulate him scoot further down the bench.

Harry fidgets in his seat. Hermione doesn’t acknowledge him more than a glance over her book. Ron has a mouth full of food so he just elbows Harry quite hard in greeting. Harry digs around in the mashed potatoes and turkey legs. There is a cranberry tart down by Dean that he feels like skipping dinner for.

Harry avoids looking at Slytherin table, at least directly. He can see it in his blurry periphery, the little blob of platinum blonde that hangs stoically between Pansy and the mass that is Vincent Crabbe. Harry gazes down at his plate, thinking again of the things that plagued him before the incident in the bathroom. He really ought to let it go.

He really, really can’t.

Harry is chopping his cranberry tart into very small pieces with the side of his fork when he sees the blob of platinum blonde raise up slightly and start making off toward the doors. He dares himself to look, and there goes Malfoy, rushing out of the Great Hall, his gait so long and graceful he appears to float.

“I’ll see you in the common room,” Harry says, gripping his stomach and wincing like he’s really got to use the loo. Hermione’s eyebrows over her book tells him all he needs to know. He’ll deal with the fallout later.

He tries not to look too eager until he is out of the doors of the Great Hall himself. Just as soon as he enters the corridors, he spots Malfoy disappearing around the landing of a large stairwell.

Crabbe and Goyle won’t be long behind him, but they haven’t come yet, so Harry must manage to buoy just between them and Malfoy.

It proves successful all the way up into the seventh floor, just beyond where the Room of Requirement lies. Dobby said this was where Malfoy went, when he was doing whatever sinister plot he was concocting. Harry can hear Crabbe and Goyle echoing behind him, their apish laughter coming loudly off the stone. Harry must look behind for too long, because when he rounds the last corner, Malfoy is there waiting.

Malfoy glares down the bridge of his pointed nose. Harry had a problem with spots in third year until Hermione cooked up a concoction, and he wonders briefly if Narcissa Malfoy stocks something similar her son, who has a very clear complexion. Malfoy is, however, pale as a ghost. He is holding Harry to the wall with the bony part of his lower arm. With his other hand he drives the point of his wand into Harry’s stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. Malfoy blinks, then pushes the wand further into Harry’s side. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what the spell did, or I wouldn’t have...”

Malfoy’s face does something strange, like he is playacting through a few emotions, confusion, sadness, anger, disgust. “Is this a trick?” He asks.

“No. _No_ ,” Harry says urgently, holding his palms up high, away from his wand, in surrender.

Malfoy pulls away, then steps much farther then perhaps he needs to, and for a moment shields himself from Harry like Harry is the sun. “How’d you— not know what the spell did?” His face is flushed.

“I only read it in a textbook.” Harry feels awfully stupid for this explanation.

Malfoy laughs, but he does not smile. “I must have missed the lesson.” He pockets his wand, still gripping it tight in his hand. He spins around and keeps on toward the Room.

“I’m not lying,” Harry says, “All that it said was, ' _for_ _enemies_ '.”

Malfoy doesn’t even acknowledge Harry. He disappears down the hall.


	4. Chapter 4

Malfoy is not the same anymore.

He is supposed to be thespian in the melodrama of secondary school bullying. He is supposed to be Hogwarts considerably more attractive but equally as cruel Dudley Dursley. He is supposed to hate Harry, to give Harry something to hate. Now Harry just feels bad, like he took the game too far without trying.

The sad truth is that Draco’s hatred was a fixture of Harry’s school experience. Perhaps that’s what happens when children are orphaned and then abused the majority of their childhood; they grow comfortable with hatred and feel aberrant when they lack it’s familiar pressure. But Harry doesn’t know, because he doesn’t know who he would ask.

Harry has come to detest the absence of glaring, stalking, or otherwise tormenting. He considers who else has hated him as long or half as hard as Malfoy that he might transfer his unused energy to.

Hermione condemns Harry at any sign of interest or concern.

“Not worth any more trouble, Harry,” Hermione says, typical austerity in her voice. She’s posturing the way she likes to when she is absolutely certain, her round chin high in the air, shoulders square. She is small, but Harry still shrinks before her, even if he rolls his eyes.

“Why? Don’t you want to know too?”

“Yeah,” Ron says, “After what happened to Katie… to me.” He says it like he’s admitting something.

“You don’t know those things were his doing,” Hermione says.

“I _do,_ ” Harry insists. There is no explanation beyond this. The feeling in his stomach tells him so.

She only glares in response.

Harry follows Malfoy again. Perhaps Malfoy is baiting him, and that’s why he leaves plain as daylight in the middle of supper (and with less regularity, during breakfast and lunch). Pansy looks longingly after him, though if she were a smidgeon less oblivious, she might subsequently notice Harry.

Just in the hallway before the Room of Requirement, Harry loses the sound of Malfoy’s footfalls. He inches up to the corner, not yet willing to peek beyond it, just listening.

Malfoy has become wiser to Harry’s stalking. Harry is ambushed. He feels the soreness on his shoulder blades from being slammed against the stone once more. His sweater is balled up in Malfoy’s fists, but Malfoy has to reach for his wand. Harry sees a needle-eye opportunity, and threads it.

Harry overtakes him. He takes Malfoy by his skinny wrists, flicking his wand to the ground. It makes a weak sound like a dropped twig. They have switch positions in a blink, seemingly before Malfoy can even realize. But he doesn’t kick, or tear, or punch. He just laughs, which gives Harry pause.

“Crabbe and Goyle will be around any minute now,” Malfoy smirks, his sharp chin perched high, the corners of his mouth curved like a cat with prey in it’s jaws. Harry grips harder on Malfoy’s wrists to prove he can. Malfoy rolls his skull around on the wall.

“Not afraid of those gits.” Harry watches the Room of Requirement forming on the adjacent wall- Malfoy must have begun forming it far down the hall. A plan comes strikes Harry, a terribly stupid one, but still.

They are nearly the same height, but Harry feels much bigger, and Malfoy recently being so waifish and wan confers the illusion of a significant disparity between them.

“I knew your apology was worth old boot socks, you wanker,” Malfoy laughs.

“I meant it,” Harry insists.

“Oh,” Malfoy says, regarding his fettered wrists as though noticing their position for the first time, “You’ve convinced me.”

“What are you hiding, Malfoy?”

Malfoy smirks again, and it looks very much like a dare. _Hit me,_ it says, _do it._

Crabbe and Goyle’s voices are sounding down the hall, quickly growing louder, and Malfoy full out grins, his straight teeth in Harry’s face.

Harry curses. Then he rams Malfoy square in the stomach with his shoulder, tackling him forward like an American football player. They crash through the doors of the Room of Requirement.

Crabbe and Goyle notice the commotion due to Malfoy’s shrieking, but they miss the disappearing door by a long shot.

Harry drops Malfoy on the floor and looks up. This is wrong. Harry must have formed this version of the Room accidentally.

“What do you hope to accomplish, Potter? Going to cut me up again?”

“Figuring out what you’re getting up to.”

“Clever. It’d take you maybe, dunno, a thousand years and change to rifle through all of this rubbish.”

Harry wonders. And wonders again. Then he realizes he didn’t form this Room at all. So he changes the subject.

“You’re one of them,” says Harry. “Show me.”

Malfoy looks from beneath his furrowed brow. He only lacks the cane and antiquated ponytail before he is the spitting image of Lucius Malfoy. A little humor cracks over his features and then, “Didn’t know you swung that way, Potter, but if you insist,” Malfoy sniggers, making a show of unbuttoning his trousers.

Harry steps forward and grabs Malfoy’s wrist, the very same side that Snape, that Wormtail, that Lucius… He shoves up the sleeve. He might retch. The ink of Malfoy’s Dark Mark is so black, so clean, it doesn’t look real. He stares, and Malfoy lets him.

“For enemies,” Malfoy mutters eventually. He sneers and pulls his arm away, tending delicately to the cuff of his sleeve. “Do you regret it now?”

“Regret what?” Harry says, knowing well what Draco means, but wanting to buy time before he must reply.

“Cutting me up, idiot.”

“Yeah, I still do.”

Malfoy goes cross, a familiar face. “Why?” He urges Harry, “WHY? I tried to use _Cruciatus_ on you.”

Harry nearly flinches, remembering the vulture-pecking, knife-tearing, molten-searing pain. “Not so bad, really,” Harry lies.

“I’d do it again,” Malfoy tells him, but a wobble in his voice betrays him, and he knows it.

Harry once tried to use the Cruciatus Curse, but its casting was unique in that you needed a pure intention. The pure intention to truly torture. Even after Bellatrix killed Sirius, even after. Harry barely sent her flying to the ground. She stood up immediately, cackling.

“I don’t think you could,” Harry spits.

Malfoy turns his nose up, and says, “Try me, Potter. Give me a reason.”

“Where’s your wand?”

Malfoy says nothing.

“So get on, go do whatever you usually do, and I’ll stick around here,” Harry says, folding his arms and leaning back against the door.

“Sod off, idiot,” Draco says.

Harry feels like a child again. This is usual for them. This feels like equilibrium.

“I’ve got all day,” Malfoy crosses his arms too, an unfaithful mirror. “Oh,” Malfoy glances at his watch, “Got all night too.”

“You know what? I don’t need you here to find it.” Harry steps back from the door. “Go.”

Malfoy doesn’t budge. In fact, he looks like he expects Harry might tackle him again. Harry nods.

Malfoy creeps to the door, stopping just when his fingers meet the handle. He contemplates something and says “Touch me again and I’ll kill you,” before slipping through the exit.


	5. Chapter 5

Malfoy is nothing if not consistent.

Harry scarfs down some beans and sugared yams. His invisibility cloak is hanging from his back pocket and concealed beneath his school robes. Hermione has mostly spared him from lectures, and Harry thanks the Gods of Ancient Runes for inundating her with work so she has no time to yell at him. After a week of Harry’s… _mild_ stalking, Hermione has given up her opposition. She rolls her eyes laboriously while Harry scoots the bench back to leave. She sighs.

“Lave cakes,” Crabbe says, somewhere on the fourth floor.

“You see the caramel corn?” Goyle says, miming eating a cob.

Goyle huffs, longing. “I saw those.”

“Merlin, will you two shut up?” Malfoy clips, “I’m happy to tell your fathers that you failed me because you couldn’t resist desert. Maybe I’ll tell the Dark Lord myself.”

Crabbe and Goyle do as much as they can to non-verbally express annoyance behind Malfoy’s back. Goyle employs Malfoy’s prim step and Crabbe stifles a laugh.

They are not privy to Harry who is trekking quietly behind them, bashful and invisible. It’s been a long week coming up with a decent ways to distract Crabbe and Goyle so Harry can slip into the Room after Malfoy, unnoticed. Crabbe and Goyle take their position framing the door, their hands crossed firm in front of their stomachs like some kind of muggle bouncers.

Harry casts _tumultum_ , a simple fourth-year spell. The little ball of disembodied sound goes crashing down the hall. Crabbe and Goyle share a glance and go running after it, and Harry slides through the door just before it can vanish.

Harry looks around at the whirring mess, a cacophony of small, timeless sounds. An old clock strikes twelve every nine minutes. There is a teapot that is bigger around than Harry. Beyond the mess of it all is Malfoy, and the chirping of a bird.

Malfoy has made a clearing in the field of rubbish, and he is standing before the cabinet that Harry stored _Advanced Potion-Making_ in. Harry contends some panic over whether the book is still there. Not that Malfoy needs help with potions class, though he’d be happy to figure how Harry swiftly became top of the class.

Curiously, Malfoy lets the tiny blue bird come from within the cabinet and perch its talons upon his finger. It shows it’s wings off for Malfoy, the delicate line of it’s feathers flexing.

Malfoy covers his mouth and howls, holding the bird as far away as he can so as not to startle it. He’s laughing. Harry sneaks up behind him, so close that if Malfoy turned too abruptly they would collide.

Harry doesn’t give himself time enough to consider it before he is reaching around Malfoy’s neck with his cloaked arm, wand pressing up his chin. The bird lifts in flight, frightened, and flies far into cavernous ceiling above.

“What does it do, Malfoy?” Harry growls.

“Fuck you,” Malfoy says, kicking, pulling Harry’s arms.

“What does it do?” Harry twists his wand into Malfoy’s windpipe. “Nothing? Just an ordinary cabinet?” He points his wand toward it, deliberating.

Malfoy struggles harder, pulling on Harry with all of his weight.

“ _Confringo_!” Harry shouts, and the cabinet lights fire from within. It’s not a good idea, what with all the ancient stuff mounding the floor around them. He waits, Malfoy wrestling desperately in his hold, until the glass is sufficiently melted and the wood properly incinerated. “ _Praefoco_ ,” he casts then, suffocating the fire and letting Malfoy sink to the floor above the ashes. They smolder, then smoke, then nothing. The cabinet is a pile of tepid glass and ash.

Malfoy cries. He sobs so hard that his ribs contract in waves. It shocks Harry so badly that when his invisibility cloak slides off, he doesn’t have the mind to catch it, nor pick it up.

Malfoy twists around on the floor, raising to stand, his wand out for casting, and he screams, “ _Crucio!”_

It’s as Harry expected. He is blown back with a start, across the small clearing made by Malfoy, and he lands with his spine square on the leg of an old armchair. He gets up, gripping his back, the pain shooting up and down his legs. It is not the pain of the Cruciatus Curse, but of a mundane physical impact. Malfoy looks stricken by this. “I told you,” Harry mutters.

Malfoy reaches up to cast it again, but even doubled over, Harry anticipates it and disarms him instead. Tears roll down Malfoy cheeks. He does not hold his chin so high now, and Harry looks away.

“I couldn’t do it, either. I tried. Your aunt. I couldn’t…” Harry says, remembering Bellatrix and her sick laugh, the rattling of her heeled boots as she ran, the flow of her black coat and her mop of hair.

Draco mulls over it. “Because she killed Sirius Black?”

“He was my Godfather.”

Draco nods. “What stopped you? Why couldn’t you?”

Harry understands the subtext. _Why can’t I?_ “Dunno,” he lies, “What’s stopping you?”

Malfoy shrugs, then looks again at the pile of ash on the floor. The sight of it elicits another mewl. “Why are you following me anyway?”

“Because you’re up to something.”

“It’s not any of your business.”

“It’s my business when I’m certain you’re dealing with Death Eaters. It’s my business when you might hurt somebody else, they way you did Ron. Or Katie.”

Malfoy grimaces, then he turns and kicks an old portrait until the frame comes apart. The frame’s inhabitant starts protesting in a different language, perhaps Latin, so Malfoy kicks straight through the canvas.

“Do me a favor, will you?” Malfoy says. Harry can’t look away from Malfoy’s grey eyes, welled with tears. How stark a change from the whooping, gleeful boy he found moments ago. It’s like Malfoy to whine, to cry when he doesn’t get his way, purposed for manipulation. But Harry- maybe he is seeing things- discerns a horrible sadness that was never there before.

“What?” Harry asks, though it sounds more earnest than he means for it to.

“Leave me alone,” Draco says

“Why are you so…” Harry trails off. “Why are you being like this?”

Draco’s face twists up. He trembles as he runs his palm flat across his hair, affixing lost strands.

“Death Eater life not what you thought it would be?” Harry says.

Malfoy flinches.

“I would think you would be in your glory—“

“Shut up,” Malfoy bites.

“Just what you’ve always wanted—“

“ _Shut up!_ ” Malfoy says, stepping forward again. Then he looks down at his wand and stoops low to pick it up.

Harry panics inside but won’t show it. “What was the cabinet for?”

Malfoy doesn’t respond. He glares, sheathing his wand, stepping around Harry, seeing if Harry will stop him from leaving. Harry isn’t sure if he should.

“I’ll find out, Malfoy,” Harry says, “Might as well just tell me.”

“Tell Granger I said good luck,” Malfoy says, eyes glinting, a smirk going over his face like he doesn’t have tear tracks drying on his blotched skin. Then he goes jogging off to the exit. Harry looks over at the pile of ash.


	6. Chapter 6

“So,” Hermione says, ”Where have you been disappearing to, Harry?”

Harry doesn’t feel like answering her. The common room stoked them a low-burning fire for the spring night chill. It warms the cotton of the back of his jumper. He’ll indulge Hermione.

“Trying to figure what Malfoy’s doing.”

“Still? And nothing I presume? We know he’s in the Room of Requirement, so have you—“

“It’s a cabinet. A simple storage cabinet.” Harry takes a deep breath, not prepared to admit that: “I’ve watched him for the last week. He puts an object in there, casts a spell I’ve never heard, and the thing disappears. The incantation is _Harmonia Nectere Passus_. Anyway, lately, the things come back.”

Ron shakes his head. Then he yawns like a lion, so loud that Hermione pauses to glare at him.

Hermione brushes hair from her forehead. Her and Ron are sitting so close together that the cushions of the couch are bucking up on each side. “I’ll see what I can find about the incantation, I suppose,” she offers

Harry drops his head between his shoulders and sways back and forth. He’s so exhausted. He checks the Marauder’s Map often, perhaps later into the night than he would admit.

“So at Borgin and Burke’s, I asked that old troll what Draco was up to in there,” Hermione says, “And he forced me out. They must know something. I’d like you to take me to the cabinet, if you would, so I can examine it for enchantments or—“

“It’s gone,” Harry says. “I burned it.”

Hermione stares at him, and maybe it is not intentional, but Harry feels very stupid for it. “Well,” she laughs, “It doesn’t matter, now, does it.” She slaps the top of her thighs, looking ecstatic that she won’t have to hear about it anymore.

“What sort of things was he putting in there?” Ron asks.

“An apple,” Harry considers, “Though when he got it back, there was a bite from it. A box he took from the Room. A bird. He was— Merlin, he was chuffed when the bird came back.”

“So he is sending them somewhere,” Hermione says.

“Sounds like a parlor trick,” Ron shrugs, then he yawns again.

Harry pinches the bridge of his nose, suddenly imagining that he has only foiled Malfoy’s dreams of becoming a muggle entertainer.

Hermione stands and stretches, “Well you’d best get your cloak and go foil his plans.”

Harry feels the contents of his stomach rise with a fury. He should be happy that Hermione is finally endorsing his recent fixation. He hopes his panic doesn’t show. He doesn’t _have_ the invisibility cloak. He left it on the floor of the Room of Requirement. How could he forget?

Ron yawns twice more, and Hermione looks at him like he has just pledged his life to the Dark Lord. “We’re going to bed,” she tells Harry, and coaxes Ron by his sleeve.

Harry can’t make his throat work. It’s difficult enough to say, “Night!” before they ascend to stairs to their dormitories. Okay. He can use _accio_ and just wait a while. He’ll explain this to the Fat Lady so that she won’t yell at him.

Harry sticks his wand in a small crack beside the portrait. “What? Who goes there?” The Fat Lady cries, “Get back to bed!”

“ _Accio cloak.”_

He’s prepared to wait a good while, if the Room will even offer him such reprieve. It’s shouldn’t be such a big deal, if—

Harry is hit hard in the back of the head. He puts his hand there, spinning around to find that his cloak is on the floor at his feet, launched from somewhere within the Gryffindor common room. He sees a pair of black oxfords so shiny they appear to glow. They are on the feet of possibly the worst person to be standing here right now.

“What the _fuck?”_ Harry says, “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Stealing your style,” Malfoy says quietly, so as not to wake the entirety of Gryffindor house. Harry considers that. How would they feel about one of the most notorious Slytherins in current attendance trespassing in their grounds? Harry cannot measure how he feels about it just yet. He looks back down at his cloak.

“You bastard.”

“Half-blood.”

Harry could laugh. He feels it whirring madly in his chest. “Brat,” Harry says.

It must strike a nerve, because Draco comes charging forward and tackles Harry to the floor. They land with a thud, Harry with the wind gone from his lungs and his glasses a decent distance thrown. Draco is straddling him, pinning his arms down with his knees and the weight of his body. He points a long finger at Harry’s face, and it’s all, from this distance, that Harry can clearly see.

“Stop,” Malfoy says, every word annunciated, “Ruining. Everything. Potter.”

“Stop following me around,” Harry laughs. He can’t help it.

Malfoy makes some sound that sounds like disbelief. “ _You!_ You are the one following _me_ around, you stalker.”

“Don’t be so shit at hiding then, yeah?” Harry says. He’s trying not to laugh so desperately that his eyes are starting to leak. It’s not particularly funny, though this seems, right now, like the funniest thing Harry has ever seen.

Malfoy leans closer to his face. Harry can feel his breath, smell his cologne. Harry fumbles for his glasses and Malfoy pushes them into his hand.

“What, you going to snog me, Malfoy?”

“In your dreams,” Malfoy says, then he raises up and steps around Harry like he is a pile of excrement that he’s trying to avoid.

“Your common room is shit,” Malfoy says, evaluating the tapestries on the walls, a little crystalline lamp.

“Much better than the Slytherin one.”

“When have _you_ seen the Slytherin common room?”

“Second year. Polyjuice.”

Malfoy shakes his head, and Harry can tell he is concealing by the tight lines of his face. “Why?”

“I wanted to see if you were the Heir of Slytherin.”

“But it was you,” Malfoy says.

“Yeah, gathered that.”

“It’s always you,” Malfoy says, quiet, weak, indignant. Harry doesn’t know how to perceive it. Malfoy continues, “Heir of Slytherin, youngest seeker in years, then the Triwizard tournament…”

“Cedric—“ Harry starts.

“I know. So honorable. You speak parseltongue, you kill that basilisk, the philosopher’s stone.” Malfoy is fidgeting with the beads hanging from the lampshade.

“Careful. Might mistake that for jealousy, Malfoy.”

Then there is a pause so long that Harry begins to suffocate beneath the weight of it. 

“So I’d better borrow that cloak again, thanks,” Malfoy says. He leans over and scoops the fabric up.

“Ah, better not,” Harry says, gripping the other corner in his fist.

“I’m not taking detention! You know how far I’ve got to walk!”

“Don’t get caught,” Harry winks.

“Need I remind you of the incident in the bathroom? Your 'accidental' curse? You owe me, you nitwit. Give me the cloak and we’ll call it even.” He tugs on the corner of the cloak to demonstrate what he’s intending.

Harry can’t argue that, but he’d sooner die than give up the invisibility cloak, so he says “I can walk down with you.”

Draco drops the cloak, affronted. He bumps Harry’s shoulder going to the door. He leaves, quite dramatically, and the Fat Lady begins screaming so readily that Malfoy screams back. And then he’s knocking desperately, so Harry lets him back inside.

“I hate you,” Malfoy says, his pristine hair disturbed in the commotion.

Harry does not speak lest he divulge how satisfied he is with the whole display. He has to grimace to suppress the cackle that is pressing him. He shoulders on one side of the cloak and then offers the other side to Malfoy, who steps in as though he is walking up the gallows.

Together they seal the front seam, and when Harry glances at them in the great mirror in the corner. they are both invisible. Though they are both tall, not even their toes stick out from beneath the cloak, as though the fabric learns the shape of its user and adjusts.

“I’ll steal this thing again,” Malfoy whispers as they weave down the shifting stairs, “I swear it.” A set of touchy stairs go flying sideways just as they step on, and Malfoy just barely grabs the railing to right himself. Harry laughs, so Malfoy shoulders him hard.

“I’ll duel to the death over this thing,” Harry tells him. What he does not say is: _It was my father's._

The next set of stairs move abruptly and Malfoy falls ungracefully into Harry, who helps to steady him. Draco collects himself then shoves away.

In the hall, Mrs. Norris is scouting ahead of her master. She sniffs the stone floor, then darts in circles around Harry and Malfoy. The yellow glow of Filch’s lantern approaches, limping along the hall with him.

“What is it, my sweet?” Filch coos. She meows eagerly back.

Harry and Malfoy realize at once that they must walk on one side of the hall to avoid Filch, but they start heading in opposite directions. Harry feels the cloak riding up his ankles. He yanks Malfoy by the arm and pulls him to the left. They flatten against the stone. Malfoy nurses his arm where Harry grabbed him, and Harry rolls his eyes.

Filch sniffs around with Mrs. Norris, Harry and Malfoy inching down the hallway.

Could it be any more ridiculous than this? Escorting a Death Eater to the dungeons so he won’t get detention? A gesture of good will?

“Can’t imagine the shit you’ve got up to in this cloak,” Malfoy says, glancing over at Harry, once they are clear of Filch.

“You don’t want to know.”

The thought leaves Malfoy frowning.

They arrive in the lowest halls of the dungeons which stretch deep below the lake. Harry scarcely remembers which part of this bare stretch of stone has the concealed dormitory entrance. Malfoy feels around in the cloak for the seam. Then he stops, pondering, and looks over his shoulder. Not quite at Harry but not at anything else.

“You’re welcome,” Harry says.

“Get bent,” Malfoy snorts.

Harry draws the cloak together after Malfoy leaves it. Malfoy approaches the wall, a nondescript grouping of stones.

“ _Bubotuber_ ,” Malfoy whispers.

Harry cackles- can’t stop himself- far too loud.

Malfoy glares at the space he approximates where he left Harry inside the cloak. The stones in the wall flip and shape into something else entirely, not unlike the wall in London where Diagon Alley begins.

“I’ve been waiting,” a girl cries, catapulting into Malfoy’s arms, “Draco, I’ve been so worried.”

Harry makes his way down the hall.


	7. Chapter 7

Draco and Blaise are talking just outside of the Great Hall. Because Draco had to tell _someone_.

Draco laid in bed last night staring at the ceiling, the pretty aurora of green moonlight refracting around the stone-block walls of their dorm. And Blaise asked why he was staring like he was Confunded.

Draco wouldn’t give it up, not until just fifteen minutes ago. He’s bad at keeping secrets.

Blaise is asking questions about Potter’s invisibility cloak, probably plotting a heist in his head, when Pansy comes strutting up.

“You won’t _believe_ what I’ve just heard,” she says.

It’s probably about Potter. Pansy won’t give up torturing him, which is good, because Draco doesn’t currently possess the energy to hound Potter as he used to.

“Gingy Weasley was caught snogging _Lovegood_ ,” she says, sighing as though the words are delicious.

Blaise throws his head back, wincing and laughing all at once. Pansy seems disappointed when Draco doesn’t respond.

Then, in devotion to Draco’s brilliant, unmatched fortune, Potter comes stomping out of the Great Hall like a Great Oaf. He’s angry about something, probably, his posture tightly wound, his hand tugging his tie. The Gryffindor colors are strikingly awful, Draco thinks for the hundred-thousandth time.

Blaise looks to Draco, not in deferential way, but to inquire. So Draco waves him away, and Blaise herds Pansy gently into the hall. She looks over her shoulder in a pout.

Potter shoves by and heads for the courtyards. Draco catches up beside him and matches his stride. He can see Potter looking from the corner of his eye, the way his fists are clenching and unclenching at his sides.

“What’s got you cross?” Draco says. There is an air of coolness about him that is mastered. Like Occlumency. Like wearing a mask for so long that it won’t come off.

Potter shoves his hands in his pockets. “Hermione.”

“She does have that effect.”

“Shut up,” Potter bites.

They trail silently along the perimeter of the courtyard. It looks as though it might rain. Draco knows he has to say something, since the two of them walking together for too long might draw a crowd. Being this close to him is bound to end in chaos.

“Thanks,” Draco swallows, “For the other night.”

Harry glares at him. “Sure thing,” he mumbles.

“ Just, you know. You can’t tell anyone,” Draco says.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Well—“

“What? Have you?”

“No,” Draco lies.

“Liar,” Potter says, and he stops walking.

Draco looks out beyond the bridge at the storm clouds rolling over the hills. Then he turns around to face him.

“What does it matter?” Draco says.

“Nothing!” Potter shakes his head. Perhaps there’s misdirected anger here. Perhaps Potter has assumed form. “ _You’re_ the one who told _me_ not to say anything.”

Draco can feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. “You don’t have to be such a prick about it.”

Harry hangs his head back and looks up. “Should I keep it to myself that you’re a Death Eater?” He asks the sky.

Draco doesn’t respond. His heart is racing and he’s ashamed of it, so he does the predictable thing.

Draco lunges forward and grabs Potter by the collar, so resenting the way his hands tremble. He pushes the tip of his wand into Potter’s side. “If you so much as think of telling anyone, I’ll give you another scar,” Draco whispers through his teeth.

“What does it matter?” Harry snickers, which makes everything much worse. Draco really doesn’t frighten him, and he never has. The first year Slytherins won’t even look Draco in the eye. Harry Potter, The Chosen One, laughs in his face.

Draco feels his eyes grow wet, the burning beneath his cheeks. So much for a mask.

“Tell me what they’re making you do,” Potter says, which is way too perceptive, way too poignant.

“They aren’t _making_ me do anything,” Draco says, desperately.

Potter takes Draco’s wand hand and pulls it from his stomach. Draco wrenches it away from him.

“You’re trying to sneak Death Eaters into the school,” Potter offers. His eyes go searching Draco’s expression.

Draco feels naked, so his spreads his hands over his face and digs into his eye wells with the heel of his palm. Potter is still staring when he drops them.

“You don’t know that,” Draco says, trying to laugh, adrenaline pulling his muscles tight and making his skin itch. How does he know?

“You want to bring them here and what? Kill students?”

“No! I—“

“Why should I believe you? Why shouldn’t I tell Dumbledore right now? You said it yourself, they aren’t making you do anything. You can’t claim _imperius_.”

“If you’re going to—” Draco stutters. “I have to… I have to stop you.”

The courtyards are empty due to the weather. There’s no one around to see that Draco is clutching his wand so hard that his knuckles are bone-white. He’s standing between Potter and a reasonable escape.

“You don’t have to do it just because your family wants you to,” Potter says.

Draco hates him so much.

If Draco doesn’t do this, Voldemort will kill his parents. And he’ll kill Draco too. The Black and Malfoy lineages end right here, with him.

“I have Veritaserum, Malfoy. I’ll make you tell me.”

Draco cannot tell if he is bluffing. The sky lets out all at once, with rain so dense you can’t see ten feet ahead.

“I won’t do it.” Draco shouts, over the sound of the pour and the thunder, “If you keep it a secret, I won’t do what he’s asking of me.” He isn’t sure that he is telling the full truth.

“Then he’ll just have someone else do it.”

“No,” Draco shouts, “No one else. It has to be me.”

Potter keeps searching for something in Draco's face. Then he offers Draco his hand. Draco examines it, looking for the trick. Trepidatiously, he offers his hand in return, gives it a firm shake. Then he turns on his feet and tromps back through the grassy courtyard, muddying his dress shoes.


End file.
